


Lose My Mind Over You

by knightinbrightfeathers



Series: Penny and Agatha's guide to kicking teenhood in the butt [1]
Category: Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow series - Gemma T. Leslie
Genre: F/F, Minor Cameos - Freeform, Overthinking, mostly doctor who cameos in this verse, teenage drama queen agatha wellbelove, teenagers being teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 01:06:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3630945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightinbrightfeathers/pseuds/knightinbrightfeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Penelope is the only person who can always see through Agatha’s carefully built ‘perfect’ facade, and Agatha is the only person who can make a runaway out of Penelope’s thoughts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lose My Mind Over You

Penelope’s mind tended to wander.  
People thought that because she was a brainiac and a perfect student, she had her mind on a tight leash. It wasn’t true, though- she simply tied a string to her mind’s wrist, reminded it to heed the tugs on said string, and sent it on its way. You can make discoveries that way, unearthing bits of information left to collect dust. Penelope regarded her head as a library, with doors hidden in the shelves and floors, constantly expanding. She remembered the time she found her mother’s books on transformation spells. She could practically feel a door opening in her head. The realization that if she only combined two of the simpler spells, she could make broccoli taste like vanilla custard, came after a long session of brain-wandering. It was definitely worth her mother’s ire, especially since her mother never actually put a stop to it.  
But now, Penelope thought, I’m paying the price. I can’t even yank on the string to pull my mind back out of the dangerous section it’s wandered into.  
A fingernail flicked her on the forehead. “Penelope, pay attention.” Agatha tapped the schematic she’d drawn with a perfectly manicured fingernail and launched into her explanation once more. “The Numbertons are considered powerful in most circles, but Maisie Numberton told me that her uncle was siding with the Pitches…”  
"Hmm," Penelope agreed. She could never decide if she found social power play to be boring or interesting. On one hand, there was nothing solid in it, no way to be sure of the information it begat. But on the other hand, there was always something that drew her in when Agatha started talking…  
"Penelope, you are not paying attention." Agatha scowled. "This is important."  
"It’s just petty politics, nothing big."  
"Petty politics turn into real politics. We’ve been over this. It’s a way to gain support. Or do you want Simon to face the Humdrum alone?"  
"He doesn’t need political backup.”  
"But this is how we can learn who’ll support him when the time comes." Agatha held her gaze. "If Simon fights the Humdrum, he’ll need people watching his back from every direction and fighting the Humdrum’s army. Come on, you were the one who told me all this!"  
Penelope nodded, conceding the point- it was hers, after all- and Agatha rambled on.  
Penelope still couldn’t concentrate. She watched Agatha draw delicate lines in blue and green and red across the paper, carelessly smeared by the finger that traced them in explanation. She needed clean information, a picture she could put together, not these scattered guesses and precarious tiny alliances. She needed something she could file away under ‘things that will help Simon Snow against the Insidious Humdrum’. She needed a way to recall her mind from wherever it had wandered to…  
— —  
"What are you sulking about?"  
Penelope squinted up at Agatha. The sun was behind her, making her glow. “Sit down, you’re blinding me.”  
"Oh, that’s so sweet. I am dazzling.” Agatha sat down in the wet grass next to Penelope’s boulder overlooking the lake. Most people would have wondered at Agatha’s apparent lack of care for her clothing. Most people didn’t know Penelope had helped her spell all of her clothes against stains after a particularly messy incident with Simon and a Broggit, the latter of which spit fluid that wouldn’t come out of Agatha’s new dress no matter how much they tried.  
"Stuck up, aren’t we," Penelope said with a grin.  
"Only when we’re trying to get information. Ugh, why am I talking about myself in plural? What are you sulking about?"  
"I’m not sulking, I’m studying." Penelope held up the book in her lap as evidence.  
Agatha plucked it from her hand and inspected the cover. “Please. You never study for math. And don’t protest, you know you don’t. You just go up to the board and solve eighth year equations as if they were trivia questions.”  
"All right, I’m not sulking, I’m worrying."  
"About what?" Agatha leaned against the boulder and looked up at her with narrowed eyes. "Not the Humdrum and Simon again, please. You can’t worry all the time, Penelope, it won’t do any good."  
"No, not that. Just… do you ever wonder what you’re going to do when you get out of Watford?"  
"I’m on the fast track to socialite, so no." There was a slight bitterness to it that no one but Penelope would notice or understand- she knew that Agatha wanted more than the power a pretty, rich woman had, wanted to do more than she could as just another Wellbelove girl. "Why would you worry? You always ace the exams. You’ll get any job you want, or into any university program you like."  
"But what if I don’t know what I want? What if I get into something because it looks important or right and I end up doing something I hate? What if I choose something I like and end up in some musty old corner of a university, writing research papers about the digestive system of Spotted Goreflaps?"  
Agatha didn’t answer for a long time. She simply pressed her forehead against Penelope’s leg, her breath rebounding against the boulder and hitting Penelope’s thigh.  
Penelope looked out at the lake, but she didn’t really see it. In her head, her mind was untying the string around its wrist and looping it around a post. It nodded at her and wandered through a door that had previously been cordoned off.  
No, don’t go in there! What if you can’t come back? What if you lose your way?  
Her mind merely waved a hand at her in a familiar gesture that definitely wasn’t hers. Penelope watched it walk away tensely. Maybe it wasn’t so different in that section after all, maybe it would be safe…  
A hand crept up to her side and pushed her off the boulder. She landed in the damp grass, her arm twisted under her.  
"What was that for?" Penelope screeched, pushing herself up and wiping specks of dirt from her cheek.  
"A reprimand," Agatha said, standing up and brushing her skirt clean before she offered Penelope a hand. "You were being ridiculous."  
"I was not! And even if I was, you don’t just shove people off rocks! I could have fallen into the water."  
"You wouldn’t have. I’m an experienced shover," Agatha said cheerfully, her hand still extended. "Weren’t you the person who told me to be more straightforward towards my friends? I think shoving you off a rock is a very straightforward way to tell you to stop bring ridiculous and to remind you that you’re a wonderful smart person who can do anything she sets her mind to and who will make any choice she makes the right one. Come on, up you get."  
Penelope eyed the hand, contemplating revenge, before taking it and letting Agatha haul her up. “If Simon or Baz had done that, I would’ve spelled them into next Wednesday.”  
"I know," Agatha said. She linked her arm through Penelope’s and handed her the math book. "Here."  
— —  
"Gross," Agatha said, watching in morbid fascination as Penelope wiped her nose with an overused hanky.  
"Shud ub," Penelope mumbled. Her whole body felt like it was made of the bread pudding sitting uneaten on her plate. "Don’t you eber ged sick?"  
"Yes, but I’ve never seen someone blow their nose five times in a row and still manage to get something out of it."  
"You’re disgusding and I hade you." The situation wasn’t made any better by the fact that Agatha and Penelope having dinner without Simon was the talk of the school. Everyone kept looking at them. Penelope wanted to scream, tell them where Simon was and how stupid he was being, and that Baz was with him, and would someone please go after them to make sure they weren’t killing each other. But Simon had insisted that she stay, and Agatha refused to go after the boys into the catacombs, claiming that they were perfectly safe with each other, trust me, Penelope.  
Urgh. Penelope stared blearily at her plate and pushed it away so hard that it skidded off the table. She flinched at the crash before it came, but Agatha touched the mirror sticking out of her sweater pocket. “Don’t play with your food.” The plate floated back up to the table in a lazy loop and landed in front of Penelope again.  
"Are you okay?" Agatha felt her forehead. "Temperature. I’m taking you to the nurse."  
"No. The medicine messes wid my head," Penelope moaned, but Agatha ignored her. She wrapped an arm around Penelope’s waist and pulled her up.  
"Your mind’s already all over the place. You’ve got a fever, you ninny."  
"You’re a ninny."  
"See? If you were healthy, you’d say something like, my mind is in perfect order, Agatha, thank you very much. Unlike some people’s, it doesn’t wander off every time you try to explain advanced logistics to them.”  
"I don’t lige adbanced logistics."  
"Sure you do! Only yesterday you were talking about, what was it, the likelihood of anything actually hiding in the catacombs…" Agatha kept talking, but Penelope’s mind had just discovered a deep, dark abyss in the new section it had been wandering through lately, and she had to keep it from jumping in. She stumbled, and Agatha grabbed at her before she fell down a flight of stairs.  
"Maskelyne, you really are sick."  
"Yuh…" Penelope closed her eyes.  
"Hey! Tell me Simon didn’t talk you into scouting the catacombs with him last night." Agatha pressed her hands to Penelope’s cheeks, framing her face. "Look at me and answer, Penelope Bunce."  
Penelope looked at her, and her mind promptly bunjee-jumped into the abyss. Without a rope.  
Agatha’s eyes were large and full of concern and a light color somewhere between grey and blue and very close.  
No, Penelope told herself. No, no, no. Her mind, currently in freefall, laughed gleefully. It was heading towards her heart, where they’d conspire together to make her lose all her self control.  
"Baz. He wad bery conbincing," Penelope managed. A bubble of snot came out of her nose every time she breathed out, but Agatha ignored it.  
"Well, when he comes back we’ll convince him that not everybody has vampire constitutions." Agatha wrapped her arm around Penelope’s waist again and pulled Penelope’s arm over her shoulder. "The nurse is only a minute away, so gird your loins."  
"Agada?" Penelope wasn’t in control of her words right then. She was barely in control of her feet.  
"Yes, dear."  
I must have imagined that, Penelope thought vaguely. “Do you like Sibon?”  
"Crowley, no! Nor Basil, either. Not in that way, not since that huge fight he and Baz had over me…" Agatha shook her head and soft hair brushed Penelope’s face. "My mother was furious about it, remember? I told you about it. She berated me all through the holidays. Connections this, social standing that… I just told her that she could play matchmaking with someone else. She stopped introducing me to boys at parties after that. It was quite a relief. But you probably aren’t taking in any of this, are you? Why did you ask?" Agatha stopped in her tracks, her arm tight around Penelope’s waist. "You don’t like him yourself, do you?"  
"Dey’re my broders," Penelope said, as indignantly as she could manage.  
"Oh. Good. Here we are." Agatha pushed the door open and half-dragged Penelope in with her. "Nurse Pond? Penelope Bunce is sick."  
"What happened this time? Chimera attack? A duel with a tiger?" The nurse pointed them towards on of the beds further into the clinic.  
"A fever."  
"Well, that’s a relief." The nurse took out a thermometer and stuck it into Penelope’s mouth. After a minute, the thing beeped and chirped, "Thirty nine point seven degrees Celsius!" in a voice that was much too happy for Penelope’s liking.  
"We’ll leave you here for the night, Penelope. You can go back to the dorms, Miss Wellbelove."  
"Okay," Agatha said. "I’ll see you tomorrow, Penelope. And I"ll tell off Baz for you, don’t worry."  
Penelope caught her arm. “Stay.” Her mind may have been hazy and freefalling, but this need, at least, was clear. Or maybe clear because of the freefalling?  
Agatha looked at her for a moment, then nodded. “Can I stay with her for the night, Nurse Pond?”  
The nurse shrugged absently. “I don’t think they’ll allow it, but I’ll ask your dormhead anyway. What room number are you?”  
"We’re not roommates," Agatha said.  
"I see." The nurse handed Penelope a cup of something bright yellow and looked hard at them both. "Sorry, girls, but it would be a stretch even for roommates. The Mage requires we stick to routine as much as possible."  
Agatha looked down at Penelope, who was making a face at the vile taste of the potion, then back at the nurse. “So I have to go?” Penelope couldn’t see her face, but it was probably arranged in a look of pity-inducing sorrow.  
The nurse, however, was too experienced to fall for even Agatha’s puppy eyes, and merely smiled at them and took the empty cup from Penelope. “I’m afraid so. It’s almost curfew.” He bustled off.  
"Sorry, Penelope." Agatha hesitated, then pressed a kiss to Penelope’s forehead. "See you tomorrow."  
Maybe it’s not so bad, this thing where my mind falls, Penelope thought before she drifted into potion induced sleep.  
— —  
Simon and Baz came and went, the next day, the former to fret and the latter to apologize and rebuke her for not dressing warmer until she hexed him. The “by the fairy courts, Penny” Baz yelped as he gripped his nose went a long way towards making her feel better. But even though the disgusting potions Nurse Pond gave her kept her lucid, she couldn’t get a grip on her mind. Every time she thought of the kiss Agatha had planted on her forehead it bounced up and down on her heart like her heart was a trampoline.  
— —  
Agatha came and stayed the whole lunch hour. When Penelope grouched about the boys not telling her a thing about their little quest, Agatha told her what they had found in the catacombs, which was nothing.  
"But you should have seen them blush and glare at each other. If those two would just get over theirselves they’d realize that they’re desperately in love."  
"You’d have to pull their heads out of their arses first," Penelope said absently.  
"Such language. Penelope Bunce, I’m absolutely horrified." Agatha giggled and nudged Penelope. "Why the long face?"  
"It’s the usual length, thank you very much. I’m," Penelope hesitated, "tired of being in the hospital wing, I guess."  
"You’ll be out in a day or so. It’s not as if you can’t make up the classes."  
"Uh huh." Penelope looked down at her hands.  
"Okay, what’s wrong? For real this time. You usually go ballistic at the thought of missing classes." Agatha pushed her face up into Penelope’s personal space, and Penelope’s heart turned into a trampoline again. For once, she was at a loss for words.  
When the bell rang, Agatha took hold of Penelope’s hand and squeezed. “You can tell me anything,” she said seriously.  
Agatha hadn’t said anything about the kiss. She’d assigned it too much meaning. Stupid mind, going on vacation when she need it. Well, she’d just have to tie it up again.  
— —  
"Carson is checking you out," Agatha whispered.  
Penelope didn’t even look up from the book she was going through. “Not interested.”  
"You’re never interested in boys."  
"Shocker," Penelope muttered. No, this wasn’t the right book, or perhaps she just couldn’t find the right passage. She put it back.  
"What do you mean?" Agatha leaned into her.  
Penelope pulled another book from the shelf. “What do you mean, what do I mean? Boys. Not my thing.”  
"What’s your thing, then? Dragons?"  
"Dragons." Penelope snorted. "Please."  
"Pennyyyyy."  
"I don’t like boys, Agatha." Not this book either. Focus, Penelope.  
Silence. “You don’t?”  
Penelope bit back a sigh. Even in the World of Mages, which was supposedly enlightened, people had a hard time understanding sexual orientation. She’d read dozens of books on it, and not one of them was actually clear on the subject. “Surprise, Agatha, I’m gay.”  
"You are?" Agatha sounded so… wondering. As if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  
"How is this a surprise to you? I mean, it’s not like I ever showed any interest in boys, and I’ve dated girls. I dated Miana last year, in between the general mayhem." Why am I babbling like this? Control yourself, Penelope. “Didn’t Baz tell you? Simon? It’s not exactly a secret. Even Simon wasn’t surprised, and the gandry world is much less sophisticated about that kind of thing. They did use to burn homosexuals along with mages…” Penelope clamped her mouth shut and slapped the last two books she’d rejected onto the pile in her arms. Maybe later she would be able to actually concentrate on the contents.  
"No, they didn’t tell me." Agatha sounded so odd that Penelope turned to look at her, anxiety and disappointment combining into a noxious potion within her. Agatha’s mouth met hers, and Penelope froze. She recovered only when Agatha pulled away.  
"Penelope?"  
"I don’t need this," Penelope said. It came out too high, too uncertain. "I thought I was the person you were real to."  
"I am being real! Penny-"  
But Penelope dropped the books in her arms on Agatha’s feet and ran.   
Where had her mind gone? She’d lost it, somewhere, because if she hadn’t she would have stayed and been reasonable, but instead she was running away and crying.  
— —  
"Penelope."  
"I can’t think right now, go away," Penelope mumbled. "I need to figure it out."  
"Figure what out?" Agatha knelt in front of Penelope’s boulder, her back to the lake.  
Penelope opened her mouth to explain. Closed it. Opened it again. “My mind’s gone wandering.”  
"You always said that you like letting it wander."  
"This is different." Penelope stared at her hands in her lap.  
"Maybe I can help you find it again?" Agatha’s voice was so, so careful.  
"You’re the reason I lost it," Penelope blurted, and if she needed evidence that she’d lost her mind, there it was. "You’re my friend. And you like boys. I, it doesn’t make sense to…"  
"I’m your friend," Agatha agreed. "And I like you." Agatha took Penelope’s hand in her own and lifted them between them. "Penny, look at me. I like girls, and I like boys, and I like you. You know what? Forget about like. That’s a first year-ish thing to say. I love you, and friendship is an excellent base for that, so I don’t see what’s stopping you from believing me, and I don’t understand why you think you’ve lost your mind, because it makes perfect sense to love me, I didn’t mean that arrogantly though." Agatha pushed her forehead against Penelope’s. "I can’t not tell you everything, Penny. It all comes out. I can’t keep things from you and I’m always really and truly myself whenever you’re around. I can’t help it. I couldn’t fake this even if I tried."  
Penelope closed her eyes, blocking out Agatha’s wistful expression, and felt her mind make a huge jump- one, two, three- and land back in its proper place. She’d been so focused on blocking things out and fixing the mess in her head that she hadn’t even considered this option. This option, which was confusing enough in its own right, but a good confusion. The kind that happened everywhere but in her head.  
Penelope opened her eyes and pulled her head away. Agatha smiled at her feebly. Even Agatha’s feeble smiles were rays of sunshine, but Penelope saw the hope and warmth behind it. She was probably the only person that could.  
Penelope smiled back and searched for the exact right thing to say. She couldn’t find it.  
"I found my mind again," she said, and leaned in for a kiss.  
It was hesitant and light and hopeful, and Penelope’s mind flew right out the window. It would come back, though. She knew it would.


End file.
